


Meta about the aftermath of Like Father...

by Cornerofmadness



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, Meta, Spoilers, disposing of corpses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28136010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornerofmadness/pseuds/Cornerofmadness
Summary: My thoughts about the believability of covering up what happened in the finale versus possible outcomes if the problem is faced head on. There are some mild S2 spoilers at the end and marked as such so you can stop reading before you get there if you want.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	Meta about the aftermath of Like Father...

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this up nearly 6 months ago but never put it on AO3, just in my blog, mostly because I’m not looking for a fight. I’m still not but I decided okay, let’s put it up. A debate is fine, a fight is not.

So why hiding the body wouldn’t work for me (besides the fact Malcolm should be smarter than that)?

1\. Malcolm has a warrant out for his arrest. Remember Gil sent him away saying they’re filing first degree murder charges and I can’t stop it. Granted the whole team looked the other way at the hospital because they know how much Gil means to Malcolm. So that means there are cops actively searching for Malcolm. He’s supposed to be on house arrest at his mother’s place. That means someone should be coming to the house (if they haven’t already been there and are watching the place). There _has_ to be warrant out for Nicholas Endicott at this point as well. Jessica witness him ordering Gil’s stabbing and the police know this too. They can and do track cell phones. We know Endicott thinks he’s golden. He’s bought canonically a forensics lab, a lawyer and a judge (witness Martin in Claremont). He’s surely bought off police too. He’s arrogant so he is definitely carrying his cell phone. There should not be much time before either warrant brings the police to Jessica Whitly’s door.

2\. Ainsley did stab him several times and cast off is a thing. If you’re unfamiliar with cast off, when you’re swinging a knife or a bat and drawing blood, the blood will arc along with the weapon. Posted a few pics here of the scene. So, we have a couch and chair along with a lamp, end table and carpet all of which would have been soaked in blood. [](https://imgur.com/1670bZn)  
(You can see the cast off on Ainsley's hair and face. Also look at her face. Do you think Malcolm is NOT going to be night terroring his brains out to that expression?) In fact since we have a cut carotid you’d have arterial spray (though it looked more like Jugular venous flow but whatever, you have a major vessel cut) it’s possible droplets hit the wall, the books, all of it (Uncle Douglas’s picture too) but the high ceilings would probably preclude cast off getting all the way up there but that’s no guarantee. I’ve read about cases where it has happened. [](https://imgur.com/9DkGonM)  
(see, venous flow) Jessica has a lot of people working in her house and not just maids. She has staff there who care for her businesses. Hell, JT and Dani have been in this place more than once. People will notice if suddenly the room was gutted and everything replaced. They couldn’t hush that up.

(look at the body language in this next picture, he's done something to her)

[](https://imgur.com/lHwCMDA)  
(Why yes, everyone who works for me, with my new boyfriend in the hospital thanks to my old boyfriend and with my son up on murder charges, I thought it was the best time to redo this room top to bottom over night without any of you noticing. Ignore that bleach smell, thanks - Jessica)

3\. Even if they DID manage to redo the room in the matter of the hours available to him and transport Endicott out of there, this is a 150-year-old home. Those floor boards will be old and the blood will soak straight on in. Anyone who’s watched an hour or so of True Crime TV knows even specks of blood can be found and with the new advancements in DNA they’d be able to type it out to Endicott. In theory, the siblings could soak the flooring with bleach to denature the DNA and pray no one says ‘hey why does this place reek of bleach’ because it will (and that stuff lingers). Now of course they would have to think let’s luminol the Whitly place but they aren’t fools. If Endicott’s phone pinges in the area they’ll know he was there. Besides, him going there makes sense since Jessica _is_ a witness to his crime.

4\. The police already know Endicott tried to murder Gil. Edrisa knows Endicott framed Malcolm and knows how (so I’m assuming it’ll be down to her to clear his name). Malcolm has reasons to murder Endicott. The police will look hard at him and his family. Malcolm has to know this. He’s not a fool. He knows there’s no way he could cover this all up. Hell, if he can find traces of blood in his father’s station wagon 20 years later, he has to know they’d find the blood in any of his mother’s cars he uses to move the body (or Ainsley’s car because does she have one?)

5\. I think it would be a huge misstep with fans making Malcolm do something so criminal and criminally _dumb_. Not to mention it’s very dark. Yes, he’s protecting his sister. But he can’t just bury Endicott somewhere. He could take him apart but that is a) harder to do than you think (and I say that as a veteran of human cadaver labs) b) leaves a ton of trace evidence. Is it possible to clean up all the evidence, yes if you have time but like I said there is a clock on this. Cops are looking for Malcolm to arrest him.

So how do I think it could go?

1\. I think both siblings will go to if not prison at least a holding cell. Malcolm does in fact have a warrant out for his arrest. However, Malcolm is an expert in psychology and his sister was in a dissociative fugue. She did ask what had happened as if she wasn’t there when Endicott got sliced and diced. I think he would make a huge deal of that, trying to get her shipped to a high security psych ward on a 72-hour hold. He might have enough sway on the force to swing it.

2\. Can Ainsley get out of this? I think it is possible. Bear with me here. Could it be self-defense? Not easily but maybe. Keep in mind we don’t know what Endicott did to Ainsley before Malcolm arrived. Did they just sit there? Maybe. Did he do something more? Who knows, he did eye bang her even after leaving her mother’s bed. He could have. Yes, yes, she cut his neck from behind but this I could see them saying, he was threatening Malcolm with her mother’s gun. Jess was dating him (we lost those episodes thanks to Covid) It’s conceivable that he knew where she kept her gun in that room and I can absolutely see Malcolm planting the gun (which is still bad enough). It would be easy. Wipe the blood off Endicott’s fingerprints with some toilet paper (flush that) put his fingerprints on the gun and put it all down in the blood, let it seep in a little in case he missed any when he wiped it clean (and put his gun away in his room because if he had that…) She did it to save her brother. Jess would be savvy enough to realize if the police ask her about the gun that they know it’s there and would likely say yes Nicholas knew where it was. It might work.

3\. Let’s continue with the self defense idea. It is actually legal to kill someone if the person is an imminent threat to others. Endicott has attempted to murder Gil. As far as Ainsley knows he held her mother hostage and that’s why Gil got stabbed (she might not even know it but all Malcolm has to do is tell her). He threatened her with something (we don’t know what but if he made someone potentially as sociopathic as Ainsley (points to Q&A for evidence and the scene with Jin in the hospital and the one where her mother has to tell her to comfort her when Malcolm is kidnapped) cry he was very much a threat. He was threatening her brother and like I said, just drop a gun on him. That is the easiest and most logical way out of this and yes it still allows for drama down the road for those wanting them to hide the body for drama. There are better ways that making smart characters do stupid things.  
4\. She could get off on diminished capacity and/or insanity plea. She was truly disassociated when she did it. For me this makes a lot of sense. Hell, if her dad goes to a psych ward for murdering two dozen people then we can easily imagine she could get off this way. Especially if she has been hallucinating like her brother has been and she admits to it.

5\. Keep in mind that Endicott has been buying and selling justice for decades. Sterling was just one of his lawyers surely. The DA is going to want to downplay this as much as possible. It could shred the city really. Hundreds of cases might have to be retried. This might make the DA very eager to bury everything and let her walk. (This is also probably how Martin gets back to Claremont, because dammit, I want more Mr. David. They can probably figure out those guards were bought off to frame Martin for the escape).

6\. Someone has to know Endicott is there. Did he drive himself? If so, his car is there. If not, one of his drivers is bound to say I took him to the Whitly home. You know Malcolm has been shooting his mouth off about Endicott to anyone who’ll listen. That alone would give them probable cause to search the house. Did he take an Uber? That would be luckier for Malcolm because that’s harder to trace. He could drive Endicott out in his own car but that could lead to trace evidence.

7\. Another thing that would lead them to the Whitlys would be the fact that Endicott know Jessica was in the house when Gil was hurt. He knows she’s aware of what he did (because he had his goon killed). As soon as Jessica says that to anyone, they would be looking into it and looking into her kids because they would be good targets for a killer looking to hurt Jessica. It’s just another reason for the cops to come through Jessica’s door.

8\. Malcolm immediately told his manipulative, blackmailing father. So now Martin knows and one word from him and he could destroy his whole family. Malcolm makes bad choices. That was a really bad one but he was in shock so I can accept it. Martin does seem to want to help his kids but he is not above blackmailing them because he’s already done that to Malcolm. I don’t think he’d want Ainsley in prison, especially not after his taste of Riker’s.

So how then can we maintain drama with Malcolm if he’s not hiding Endicott’s body? Oh, that’s easy.  
1\. He’s still tormented by what his father’s done.

2\. He just watched his sister murder a dude in a vicious rage she can’t even remember

3\. Malcolm is good at his job. He has to wonder will Ainsley do it again? He has to put the dots together and wonder is she the sociopathic narcissist Daddy has always wanted? The evidence is there. Her interview mattered more than him and he knows it. She publicized his mental health issues (Ains, have you not heard of HIPAA?) which could have cost him his job if they think he’s not stable enough to do police work and just so she could get the interview she wanted. Not only that she recorded Jin’s surgery and didn’t seem to give a crap other than to get angry at him for dumping her over it. She didn’t see what she did wrong. Malcolm has to be wondering if his sister is faking emotions and she’s a psychopath too. That’ll keep him up nights.

4\. For that matter, he’ll have a crap ton of guilt about Ainsley. Did she slip through the cracks because his issues were so big and so loud that Jessica (and by extension Gil and Jackie) gave him all the attention. We’ve had hints of that and we’ve seen the flashes of jealousy that Malcolm has their mother’s complete attention and she does not. He would feel like he was to blame for them missing that Ainsley too was suffering mental health issues, that he has empathy for even criminals but somehow missed his own sister’s pain. 

5\. He has a lot to deal with. He lost a woman he cares about (regardless how a big chunk of the fan base thought about Eve). He has a fractured relationship with Dani who was quick to believe his guilt and in spite of him being for her there in the hospital, there has to be some damage done. His better father is hovering near death. His real father could be killed in prison. His mother is probably going to unspool once she finds out what Ainsley has done.

6\. His father is going to be blackmailing him left and right over this. And honestly I want to see Malcolm process Endicott’s insight. Malcolm is Jessica Whitly’s kid. He’s very much like his mother. And Ainsley is daddy’s girl. That’s enough to handle to keep the drama high in this short season.

And now for spoilers since we’re much closer to S2’s premiere. If you don’t want a couple mild spoilers, now is the time to look away.

1\. We’ve seen pictures of plastic wrap and a circular saw. We don’t know if that’s actually for episode one and I maintain cutting Endicott apart is horrible and gruesome and would make it very difficult for me to follow Malcolm as a hero after that. Not to mention it leaves a paper trail. Do we really think the Whitlys own a freaking circular saw? These are not people who work with their hands and check out lines have cameras. How many true crime shows have I watched personally where they catch them because they’re at Wal-Mart buying the bleach/plastic tote box/saw to dispose of someone with? I don’t know because there’s been that many cases. It’s _dumb_ and Malcolm would know better.

2\. We’ve seen a picture with Edrisa in the Whitly home. Now is that merely Keiko hanging out during her off time or is that a glimmer of hope that they won’t hide the body. I’m crossing my finger for the latter

3\. One of the TV review sites has suggested Malcolm is going to take the blame for this. I have serious issues with that. We now have to believe Ainsley is a fool IF she believes it. She’s drenched in blood. She had the knife in her hand. Malcolm is clean. Yes she was in a fugue but she has eyes. Now if he convinces her to let him take the blame the same way Mom took the blame for him with Ainsley knowing that he’s doing it, knowing she killed Endicott, I could handle that better. Forensically Ainsley in her heels is the same height as Malcolm so that works out. Did she slip and cut herself while slicing up Endicott, better hope not (that happens a lot in stabbing cases, the blade gets slippery). They’ll have get rid of her clothing entirely which she could fit in Mom’s clothes so that’s okay. How to explain Malcolm’s cleanliness? Good luck. And can you honestly see the NYPD allowing Gil to hire Malcolm back after slicing and dicing Endicott? Oh well if I can believe they let him back after taking off Nico’s hand (which ironically almost made me drop the show within the first half hour because I struggled with believing that). 

4\. I want to have a story I can believe in. Please, please, please let it be that. Also I am so not into Martin escaping (attempting it maybe but I don’t want it to veer even closer to Hannibal the cannibal). Also I AM excited for the two new people at Claremont so there's that.


End file.
